The Problem of Mr. Vine

Juliette Selby has kept her father's subscription library alive on stubbornness, china cups, and careful arithmetic. She cannot afford a new roof. She certainly cannot afford Ephraim Vine. Mr. Vine is forty-nine, shamefully rich, and completely self-made. He has risen so far from the coal yards that the men who own the city are forced to invite him to dinner, which is the closest any of them will get to forgiving him. He likes the library because it is quiet and warm and the woman behind the counter does not know or care who he is. She finds out. Because the bank that holds her lease is his, and the paper with his name on it is in her hand. When Juliette throws him out — loudly, at a dinner party, in front of every banker in London — Ephraim does something he has never done in his life. He lets her go. Six months later, she walks into his office and asks him for a job. She has terms. He has none. They will figure the rest out.